A patient admitted to a hospital, an outpatient treatment center, or an outpatient surgery center will have an intravenous (IV) catheter inserted for easy access for fluids and drugs to be administered to the patient. The IV catheter is typically inserted using an IV insertion device, and some of these IV insertion devices have become known in the industry as JELCOs after the name of one company which brought these insertion devices to market. It is frequently necessary for a sample of the patient's blood to be obtained—e.g., for testing, blood typing or other analysis. For many of these blood tests, only a small sample of blood is required. After the IV catheter has been inserted, the healthcare worker may obtain this blood sample by various means. One method would be to have the patient endure another needle stick either by a needle and syringe to draw an aliquot of blood or by pricking the patient's finger with a lancet for a few drops of blood.
Some have proposed to use some of the blood that remains within the JELCO or IV catheter insertion device after the IV catheter has been inserted in a patient. Most IV catheter insertion devices include an integrated flash chamber. Red blood appears within the flash chamber of an IV catheter insertion device as the operator inserts the needle of the IV catheter insertion device into the vein to show that the IV catheter has entered a vein. The operator watches the flash chamber continuing to fill with blood as the operator advances the IV catheter into the vein, thereby ensuring the IV catheter remains properly positioned within the vein. Usually the proximal end of the flash chamber is blocked by a flash plug. The flash plug typically includes a filter material that allows air to vent from the flash chamber as the blood or fluid fills the chamber, but prevents the blood or fluid from passing from the flash chamber. IV catheter insertion devices of the prior art may have one of two different types of flash plugs. An IV catheter insertion device, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,740, has a fixed or non-removable flash plug. Another type of prior art IV catheter insertion device is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,671 with a removable flash plug.
When an IV catheter has been placed within the vein, the remainder of the JELCO or IV catheter insertion device is removed from the patient. A small amount of the patient's blood remains within the flash chamber of the JELCO or IV catheter insertion device. By accessing the patient's blood from the flash chamber of the IV catheter insertion device, the operator may be able to avoid an additional needle stick to the patient. There are some known approaches to access blood in the flash chamber of an IV catheter insertion device. One such approach in IV catheter insertion devices with a non-removable flash plugs involves using an external probe, such as a pen or a golf tee, to push an internal flash plug within the flash chamber to expel blood from the flash chamber. The use of an external device such as a golf tee or pen is undesirable for several reasons. The external device must be stored some place that is easily accessible to the operator. The use of an external device is inefficient as the worker must look for or gather additional equipment when accessing the captured blood or fluid and replace the additional equipment for its next use. If the worker were to reuse any external probe or device (including a pen or a golf tee), cross-contamination may occur from one flash chamber to another, putting other patients and the healthcare worker at risk.
In IV catheter insertion devices that have removable flash plugs, another prior art approach to access the blood in a flash chamber requires the healthcare worker to remove the flash plug, thereby opening the flash chamber to access the blood within the flash chamber for testing. This action may unnecessarily expose the healthcare worker to hazardous material (such as blood or other bodily fluid) that may spill from the flash chamber.
While various prior art methods may allow the healthcare worker to access the blood or fluid within the flash chamber of an IV catheter insertion device (or JELCO), these methods present inefficient and undesirable aspects and limitations to the health care worker.
The present invention addresses some of these undesirable limitations and aspects to provide an improved device and method for accessing blood from an IV catheter insertion device without the use of undesirable additional hardware and without unnecessary risks. This new method and device will thereby increase the efficiency of the healthcare worker and reduce the hazardous exposure of bodily fluids to the workers and patients.